Alright, let’s talk about something I tinkered with not too long ago. Got this idea in my head, you see. Thought I could create this… thing. This digital ‘artifact’ that would somehow perfectly capture a fleeting thought or a complex feeling. Sounds a bit lofty, I know. Maybe that was the first sign it was heading towards delusion territory.
So, I jumped right in. Fired up the computer, started sketching out ideas. I wasn’t even sure what form it would take. Maybe some kind of generative art? Or a specific data structure? Spent a good few evenings just messing around with code libraries, trying different visual effects, playing with algorithms that were supposed to mimic randomness or emergence. Felt like I was onto something big, you know? That buzz you get when an idea takes hold.
I hammered away at the keyboard. Pulled data from various places – like random news feeds, weather patterns, even tried hooking into some social media sentiment stuff, thinking I could distill some kind of ‘essence’ from the noise. It got complicated fast. Really fast. The code started looking like spaghetti. Trying to make sense of completely unrelated data points and force them into a coherent ‘artifact’… well, it wasn’t working like I pictured it in my head.
What I ended up with was just… chaotic. Flashing colors, weird text snippets appearing and disappearing. It didn’t feel profound. It felt random, and not in a cool, artistic way. More like a broken TV screen. I kept tweaking parameters, rewriting functions, thinking maybe I just hadn’t found the right combination.
- Tried simplifying the inputs. Made it boring.
- Tried making the algorithms even more complex. Made it crash.
- Tried different visualization techniques. Just different kinds of ugly.
- Stepped away for a few days, hoping for fresh eyes. Came back, still looked like junk.
Then, one evening, staring at this mess flickering on my monitor, it kind of clicked. The whole goal was the delusion. Trying to capture something intangible and complex with a few clumsy bits of code and data? It was naive. Maybe even arrogant. The ‘perfect representation’ I was chasing just didn’t exist, or at least, not in the way I was trying to build it.
What Came Out Of It
So, the project got shelved. What’s left? A folder on my drive, gathering digital dust. Inside, there’s a bunch of code that barely runs, some notes filled with half-baked philosophy, and a few saved ‘artifacts’ that look more like glitches than art. It doesn’t do anything useful. It’s just a monument to a bad idea, really. A reminder that sometimes the things you chase hardest are just mirages. That folder, that collection of failed code and nonsensical outputs? That’s my own personal ‘artifact of delusion’. Kinda humbling, looking back at it.
